ENAC has granted Externa Soluciones the first accreditation for multi-layer polymer recycling process inspections in the laminated plastics and the food packaging industries. Sulayr Global Service, a company dedicated to recycling multi-layered PET (Polyethylene terephthalate), carried out the inspection scheme.

The use of multi-layered PET plastic containers by the food industry for product packaging is very common. However, it's a difficult material to reuse so, normally it is not recycled but burned instead for energy production. In fact, given that recycling is impossible in the manufacturing and packaging processes, companies are forced to have to manage non-compliant or excess multi-layered PET material as waste, with the entailing inherent management costs and possible damage to their corporate image, etc.

Therefore, Sulayr Global Service company has developed a novel technology for multi- layered PET recycling, which allows laminated plastic industries to turn it back into a raw material during the manufacturing process, at the same time, the food packaging industry can reuse this PET in package manufacturing.

To ensure it is used in the recovered PET productive processes, Sulayr Global Service has set out an inspection scheme to determine the requirements for obtaining the EcoSense certification for plastic manufacturers and packaging companies. Specifically, it has established periodic inspections for inspecting the use of recovered PET, among other things.

Sulayr Global Service relies on the services of the Externa Soluciones inspection body to carry out inspections as a conformity inspection body, who have been accredited by ENAC to ensure confidence in the technical competence of the inspections it carries out.

"Waging on the accreditation scheme comes from the need to standardize all the multi-layered plastic sheeting and packaging recycling processes which are carried out in Spanish territory and Europe", explained Serafín García Fernandez, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sulayr.

García Fernández added that "accreditation enables Externa to carry out inspections on two schemes set up by Sulayr and therefore makes it possible to extend its field of action not only throughout the country but also to Europe".

In fact, Sulayr's CEO points out that accreditation's support in this international expansion is already somewhat obvious:

"The response from Europe has already been very positive. Although ENAC's accreditation is very recent, there are already many packaging companies (also producers of sheeting) requesting to be inspected for the EcoSense certification."